


Birthdays and Flowers

by Aramirandme81



Series: One Word Elaborations And One Shots [15]
Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Birthday Presents, Flowers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Language of Flowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1431352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramirandme81/pseuds/Aramirandme81
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A elaboration on the Birthday word challenge from ‘One Word At A Time’.<br/>Birthday: Every year on her birthday there will be flowers and coffee on her desk along with something truly ridiculously nice yet inexpensive wrapped in plain brown paper, and every year Anders will ask who it’s from and pretend he doesn’t know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthdays and Flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elenhin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenhin/gifts).



> This is for Elenhin, a belated Birthday fic pressent. So happy returns sweetheart!
> 
> The meaning of the flowers will be at the end.

The first time it happens she’s only been working for Mr. Johnson for about three months and though he tells her Anders is fine, she is still very firmly set on keeping to propriety, so Mr. Johnson it is.

Mr Johnson though has no such sense, and the one time she got him to call her Miss Sutherland it just sounded all wrong, so Dawn have already resigned herself that she will never be ‘miss’ anything but simply Dawn.

The flowers are on her desk when she comes back from lunch and when she goes to search for a card she spots the little package wrapped in brown paper situated right beside the vase with the delicate pink flowers, Lisianthus if she wasn’t mistaken. It’s very likely that she is mistaken though, because Dawn is no flower person. Oh she loves flowers for their looks and fragrance and she knows her roses from her daisies but that’s about it, she’d never cared to learn more than that much to her mother’s disappointment. In her mother’s opinion every lady should know her flowers, in Dawn’s every lady should know her mind and speak it too when she felt the need. They’d compromised: Dawn would be as polite as possible and keep her ‘radical’ opinions and ideas to herself and her mother would stop trying to cram her own ideals down Dawns throat.

The unassuming little package once she picked it up and opened it turned out to be a new pen. Not one of those ridiculously expensive ones but certainly not cheap either. It’s a dark reddish brown colour with gilded metal, elegant yet serviceable, just what she’d need to seem extra professional when signing for packages and such.

There was no card on either flowers or package, and when she asked Mr Johnson he claimed to know nothing about it, telling her she doesn’t have to hide her dating from him.

She doesn’t know him well enough to know if he’s fibbing or not, but being the practical woman she is she decides to keep the presents even if the giver is anonyms.

Though the way Mr Johnson can’t help but smile a little when she smells her flowers or use her pen means she’s pretty certain he’s the ‘culprit’ that left the gifts. So when they lock up for the day she thanks him for the gifts and still he protests it’s not him, though why he would do so she doesn’t know.

***

The second year the same happens, she goes out to lunch and when she comes back a pot with blue Hydrangea, there is a little tag stuck to the plant so she knows, is on her desk and a package in the same plain brown as last year, though this one is much bigger. Well she say it’s the same but only nearly so, for this year a steaming cup of her favourite coffee is also waiting for her.

By now she knows Anders, yes she’s long since moved on from Mr Johnson to plain Anders by now, well enough to know that while he’s mostly a bit of a dick he’s also got a softer caring side that he absolutely hates for others to see. It’s as if he’s afraid or even ashamed of possessing any of the ‘softer’ emotions and traits. As if it would make him weak and that’s to avoided if at all possible. Dawn doesn’t know him well enough to know why that is but she suspects it has something to do with his family whom he never speaks about if he can avoid it and then his voice is either bitter or longing depending on how sober or under the influence he is.

So she plays the game of: ‘So who’s your secret lover?’ with Anders as she opens the package and finds a pair of white delicate looking sandals she’s been eyeing for weeks but simply couldn’t get herself to pay the prize of when she had another pair that was perfectly serviceable.

Again she thanks him and again he denies everything.

****

Third year she stays in office, having brought lunch with her and she wants to see Anders putting the flowers on her desk. ‘Catching him in the act’ as it were.

She doesn’t though.

She will swear to her dying day that that she only went to the filing cabinet for a moment and that Anders never left his desk which she could just see out the corner of her eye in that time, yet when she turns around the vase is on her desk as is the little brown package and the coffee.

And just how he managed that she will never know.

The present this year is the latest Harry Potter book, which had just come out the evening before and had already been sold out when she’d gotten into the bookstore to buy it. Seeing it now makes her blush. Both because she’s thrilled to have it but also a little in embarrassment that Anders have somehow found out she reads them.

When she hears Anders getting up and coming over she covers her blush by sticking her face almost into the bouquet of flowers. They really smell very nice and they are lovely, she thinks as she extracts her face when she feels she can’t justify keeping it hidden there anymore.

“Gladiolus.” Anders says from almost right behind her and she nearly knocks the vase over when the surprise makes her jump.

“What?”

“The flowers, Gladiolus.” He says indicating the bouquet with a little nod of his head. Sipping his own office brewed cup of coffee he looks at the book on her desk and smirks.

“Really Dawn? Wizards?”

“I happen to like these books.” She defends herself automatically.

“Well if it’s magic you want I’d be happy to show you some of mine.” Anders suggests and waggles his eyebrows before he winks at her and goes back to his own desk before she has a chance to reply or breathe him for being unprofessional.

For a second she would have sworn there had been something more than teasing in his gaze, but that’s just ridiculous. Anders is a womanizer yes, but he doesn’t see Dawn that way she’s sure of it. And if Dawns cheeks are flushed again she chooses to put it down to her maybe being allergic to the flowers not the reaction to thoughts of Anders and her.

The flowers really are very lovely.

***

The fourth year since she started working at J:pr is the first where her birthday falls on a non work day.

She enjoys the chance to lie in and luxuriate in the soft warm embrace of her covers and once she finally decides to get up she sings in the long hot shower and hums as she dries her hair and get dressed.

She has no plans before later in the afternoon when a couple of her friends are coming over for dinner and drinks in celebration of her birthday.

The weather that day is particularly nice and it looks to be staying that way so she decides to take advantage of it and serve the dinner outside on the small patio in her post stamp of a garden.

When she opens the back door to make sure everything is clean and proper for tonight, she spots an addition to her garden. Right at the edge of the patio, beside the two step stair, sits a medium size flowerpot with a bunch of bright and colourful looking flowers, spreading cheer in her normal ‘grass only’ garden.

For a moment she’s confused, but that changes as she spots the clear plastic bag leaning against it through which the brown paper wrapped package can be seen.

“Anders.” She says as she bends and picks up the bag shaking her head at her boss’s stubborn ingenuity. How he managed to get the heavy looking pot into her garden is a bit of a mystery, but once Anders set’s his mind on something he’s pretty near impossible to stop she knows. A quick inspection of her garden shows her two indentations in the ground that might be from a ladder, and just by the steps she finds half a shoeprint from a hard soled designer shoe half the logo visible in the soft sand. Trust Anders to go climbing ladders and breaking into people’s garden in designer shoes. She shakes her head at the image but can’t help but smile all the same.

The gift this year is a gift voucher to her favourite restaurant and two tickets to ‘Cat’s’ which is being put up in town in a few weeks time, and which she’d always wanted to see but never had the chance. There is also a small bag of coffee beans to make up for the coffee making her once again shake her head fondly.

Later as she puts a table cloth on the patio table and starts setting the table she catches herself looking at the cheerful little flowers in their pot and smiling.

Anders is a challenge and more than slightly weird as bosses go, but he really is a good friend when he wants to be.

 

****

Her fifth birthday is spend at a promotion party for a new scent one of their celebrity clients is launching. How Anders managed to land such a big name is really beyond Dawn but by now she’s used to him occasionally doing the impossible.

Normally she would not have been invited to such a party as she is ‘just’ the secretary/assistant. And strictly speaking she wasn’t invited this time either.

It was a Sunday and she had been at home looking at an evening alone because apparently every child in Auckland had gotten the flue so all her friends had had to cancel on her and no way in hell was she inviting any of her relatives over, the ones living close enough to potentially swing by for the night were all either stuck up or idiots, no thanks.

She’d just been going over her movie selection when her phone called and Anders had been on the other end. Seemed her friends kids weren’t the only ones down with the flue, Anders arm candy for the evening had apparently also caught the bug so he was in need of a substitute.

“Come on Dawn: lots of different and exotic food, fine vine and more celebrities and wannabes than you can wave a stick at. We stuff ourselves on the clients dime, make rude remarks about everyone and laugh and all you have to do is make the round a few times by my side and let me show of your beauty and your brain, what do you say? Huh? A chance to air that little black dress I just know you own. I’ll even send the hotels limo to pick you up?” Anders had said his naughty smile evident in his voice and she let herself be persuaded.  

It had gone as Anders had said, and unlike what she had secretly expected he didn’t sneak off with some woman even once but stuck by her all evening, looking completely content to do so.

They left the party fairly early but not so early as to be rude and Anders drove her home.

Once they got there he asked to use her bathroom and of course she said yes.

She went to change clothes as he used the bathroom and he said his goodnight through her bedroom door after a few more or less lewd remarks about what she was doing, she just rolled her eyes at him and told him to get lost before she got out her cricket bat and showed him a side of herself he’d very much not like to see causing him to wish her a laughing good night and leave her apartment.

Five minutes later she was just pouring water into the kettle to make a cup of tea before bed when she noticed the flowers on her coffee table and the little brown package.

She could have sworn he’d not left the apartment to get the items and he certainly didn’t have them when he’d dashed past her to the bathroom.

This year there were two kinds of flowers in her bouquet, roses and tulips both pink, and she had a hard time keeping the smile of her face when she imagined Anders holding the very girly thing.

The package this year was a fantasy novel by an author she’d never heard of but the summery on the back sounded intriguing so she poured her tea and settled down with a blanket and began to read.

 

 

*****

Her birthday the sixth year falls on a Monday.

And not just any Monday either, but a Monday from hell.

 

She’s woken by a ray of sunlight falling on her face.

First she merely grumbles a bit irritably at being woken but then she realizes that if the sun is in a position to crawl through her window then it’s much closer to ten than to her normal 6:30.

Alarmed she turns around and looks at her alarm clock which is completely dark, swearing lightly she quickly throws back the duvet and puts her feet on the ground. And that’s when she realizes just why her alarm is dead.

Her carpet is not only soaked through, but actually submerged in a layer of water deep enough that it’s reached the low power outlet that feeds her alarm and has caused a short circuit. If she listens she can just hear the faint sound of water gushing somewhere in her apartment.

Turned out her main pipe in the kitchen had burst wide open sometime after she’d fallen into bed in a near coma from having been to her least favourite cousin’s wedding all weekend, the water have had enough time to soak every room in her little flat, and she doesn’t know wetter to be grateful or not about the fact that she’s on the ground floor so no one else is affected. Of course that isn’t the whole picture, oh no far from it. Because even with the pipe having burst just as she’d fallen asleep that would not have been enough to have the water at this level. No, it turns out there has also been a flash flood in the night so quite a lot of the water is from the street and congested sewers, meaning everything the water is touching is ruined and quite a lot of other things are as well.

The short circuit means that her phone which had been charging is also dead, and when her upstairs neighbour lets her use her plug to get a bit of power in it the messages starts pouring in the second she gets it open again.

She has six missed calls as many voicemails and a dozen or so texts which she ignorers as she tries to get her insurance company to come by and rings her buildings owner because it’s their responsibility to get the water out of her apartment, says so in her lease. Only the guy who owns the building is rude and only says she will have to deal and the insurance agency can’t promise her an inspector until tomorrow evening at the earliest and if she removes any of the water before then it’s not sure they will pay.

Dawn feels like cursing and throwing her phone away but calms herself and instead checks her messages.

They are all from Anders and while the first voicemail and texts are teasing and asking her who the lucky guy or girl is that’s keeping her in bed on a work day, they quickly change tone as Anders get first a bit annoyed at her absence, reminding her of the many meetings she herself scheduled for today, and then on to increasingly worried about her safety.

The last one left only five minutes prior is a voice mail telling her that she better kick whoever it is out of her bed if she doesn’t want to be seen with him, because Anders is coming over now to make sure she’s okay.      

He must have called her while he was already in his car though because when she calls him back to tell him that she’s fine and what has happened she hears the main door open followed by the sound of his phone ringing.

She calls his name and he comes up the stairs and only when she sees his astonished face does she remember she’s in her nightgown and bathrobe and nothing else not even shoes or slippers, her feet still dirty and wet.

“I ...” She begins but doesn’t get further before Anders is hugging her and somehow that’s all it takes for her frustration at the misery and chaos of the last three days to come crashing down and she finds herself in tears telling him everything as she cries and he just holds her through it all.

 

She doesn’t know how long she cries or clings to Anders, or even when he moved them into her neighbours apartment and onto the couch, and she certainly doesn’t remember crying herself to sleep ever before.

What she does remember is waking up sometime around noon by the sound of something heavy being moved around somewhere.

Her neighbour is sitting in an easy chair quietly knitting and smiles at her when she blinks awake.

“Such a nice young man.” She says as she gets up from her seat and fetches Dawn a set of cloths she recognises as her own. “He reminds me of my Reginald God rest his soul, taking care of everything and such a gentle touch.” The old lady sighs and before Dawn can ask any questions she shows Dawn into her bathroom where she is ordered to shower and change into her fresh cloths.

Once she emerges she feels better if still somewhat tired and down at the prospect of having to go back into her flooded apartment to get the rest of her cloths and stuff and having to wait until the insurance company calls back before she can organize the cleanup of her apartment and no doubt finding a place to live while it’s being done.

Her neighbour is smiling even wider than before when she looks up from her tea and sees her.

“Something came for you while you were in the shower dear.” She says and points to the table where a brown package and an equally brown envelope. No flowers this year it seems.

The package contains a slim bracelet, gold inlayed with Tigers eye. It’s delicate and beautiful and her neighbour sighs and calls it romantic which makes Dawn blush for some reason as she puts in on, a perfect fit.

The envelope looks to have been opened and closed again in a hurry and for a second Dawn is suspicious of her neighbour but once she opens it and get a look at the content she knows why it’s been opened, or rather closed in a hurry.

It contains a business card from a spa and wellness resort situated just outside town, and a little key card with the nr 6 on it that will no doubt fit a room at the resort.

Dawn is close to tears again.

That sweet insufferable jerk has done it again.

Gotten her just what she really needed or wanted but would never have gotten herself.

 

And just as she’s wondering how he will deny his involvement this time, her neighbour wont tell who dropped of the gifts, a man in overalls rings the door and tells her they are done repairing her pipes and that they have most of the water sucked up, but that it will take a few days to clean and replace the damaged floorboards and panels, and get her new carpets in place so she should really come pack some cloths and find a place to sleep for a few days.

She asks about the insurance company and the bill but the man just smiles and tells her the insurance woman have already been and she and the blond guy agreed that the insurance would cover it all. “Really he was quite the negotiator, I thought we were heading for a supermarket down the street when we were directed here, he has one smooth tongue getting my stone ass boss to agree that a private home comes before the big corporations if he rent’s that skill out I’d like to hire him next time I have to negotiate my salary.” The man says and winks at a stunned Dawn.

Anders calls Dawn just as she have decided that she really should head into work even if it’s getting late, if for no other reason than to thank him.

“No no Dawnsy. It’s all taken care of, I actually managed to survive..well sort of anyway. But you don’t need to come in. Oh and I rescheduled the rest of this week’s meetings to next week since I’ll be heading to Wellington for a few days, got the house keeper to feed the fish. So nothing to do here really, you might as well use some of that vacation time you have saved up yes? Anyway that’s my flight they are calling so I have to go now, so don’t go to work have fun, get drunk, find someone to show your sexy moves to or something and I’ll see you next Monday.” He hangs up on her before she can reply.

Later when she arrives at the resort and is shown to her very nice suite she’s hardly closed the door before the piccolo is back with a big vase of flowers which he brings to the table.

“Sunflowers as ordered. I hope everything is to your satisfaction? If not or you need anything simply call and we’ll be there. Meals are included in the price and the kitchen is open until ten. Have a nice stay.”

She should have known Anders wouldn’t let a little thing like a flooded apartment and five meetings stop him from getting her flowers on her birthday.

****

Seventh year is blissfully uneventful.

She merely comes to work and the hot cup of her favourite coffee is there on her desk along with the flowers and the brown package.

She says blissful because the year so far have been one long rollercoaster, painting logo’s on volcanoes during earth quakes, getting sex tapes from shady characters and she even managed to quit work for a short time though she quickly found that she really didn’t want to leave at all. If she really had then no pay raise would have persuaded her to stay. It was gratifying to hear Anders say he needed her and how quickly Anders agreed to a the raise.

Speaking of the devil, Anders have been acting strange lately. Well stranger than normal anyway. Dawn would like to say it’s all down to his family having suddenly decided they wanted back in his life and have made a place for themselves again..violently so if the bruises Anders often sports now is anything to go by. Yes she’d like to blame them for it all, but she has a feeling something more is at work here. And Dawn has learned to trust her feelings when it comes to smelling trouble.

This morning though is, as previously stated, blissfully normal.

So she sips her coffee with pleasure, smiles as she picks up the little package and leans over to smell the flowers. Red and yellow tulips this year.

The package is a watch with a beautiful silver chain as it’s strap, making it more jewellery than a watch really, but she loves it and it’s just her style.

She goes to thank Anders, and for once he doesn’t deny everything though he doesn’t confirm anything either, he just ask her what she think of the flowers in an oddly expectant and nervous tone.

“Oh they are really nice I always liked tulips they seem so happy, the watch is beautiful it must have cost you a fortune?” She asks hoping to get him o admit to giving her gifts at last, but he doesn’t even react to the part of her sentence that dealt with the watch instead he asks again what she felt about the flowers.

“Well they are lovely, and I like both the colour and the scent.” She says and shrugs, at his intense look she can’t help the little burst of laughter that bubbles up and lose at the thought of Anders being so serious about flowers of all things.

“Honestly Anders they are just flowers, it’s not like they hold the meaning of life.”

Anders searches her face for a moment and she sees something flicker in his eyes, some unknown emotion she’s seen snatches of before but never long enough to identify it properly, and it’s the same this time, it’s gone before she can react and Anders smiles at her.

“Of course not, they are only flowers it’s not as if they can speak eh? Now if you are done admiring your love tokens can we get back to work? The dog food people wanted us to ....” And he’s off in work related talk which Dawns knows by now should never be interrupted because it can be hell getting him to work again once he stops.

Somewhere in the back of her mind though she knows she just missed something.

****

The eighth year sees Dawn alone in the office with that woman Agnetha sitting in Anders chair because Anders is off in Norway for some reason Dawn have yet to fully understand, and though this Agnetha person is very good at what she does and is deeply professional in a way Dawn has always wished Anders would be Dawn doesn’t like it one little bit.

And if she’s honest she’ll admit that while she likes how professional it’s all done she really misses the unexpected little thrills Anders style brought with it.

She’s just about to go to lunch when the currier comes with a package for her.

As she should have expected or at least guessed, it’s a little package wrapped in plain brown paper and a ...well it’s really more of a potted plant that flowers this year, though it does have some pretty white flowers so she guess it count’s.

The package is the smallest yet, but she’s known since before she started school that size isn’t everything.

She unwraps the package only to encounter a little wooden box. Opening the box she finds a simple golden pendant. It’s oval shaped with a funny sort of F engraved.

It’s neither her style or even all that pretty really but Dawn can’t help but touch it and once she does she finds that she’s unhooked her necklace and slipped the pendant on it and the necklace on again before she really knows it. A strange sort of peace seeps into her bones and she feels lighter, brawer and more focused than she did just seconds before.

“Might I see that?” Agnetha asks from right behind her.

Oddly enough though Dawn only startles a little at her voice, as if the slight fearfulness the other woman had instilled in her have ceased to exist or greatly diminished. Oh she’s still distrustful of her but the fear is all but gone.

What is also odd is the near hiss Agnetha gives when she touches the pendant, almost hitting Dawn when yanking her hand back as if burned.

“Ase. Clever bastard.” She mumbles softly, it’s clearly not meant for Dawns ears, but working for Anders she’s trained her ears to pick up on the nearly unsaid so she catches it anyway, she pretends she didn’t though and merely looks at Agnetha.

“Pardon?” She says with her best innocent look.

“I said someone must really like you, what with gifts and their meaning.” She says and to Dawns astonishment indicates both the locket, which she is careful not to go near, and the plant.

“Their meaning?” Dawn asks curious despite herself.

“Yes. Stephanotis,” Agnetha points to the plant, “means ‘good luck’ and the locket is Ase or Anzus, a Norse rune of blessing and luck ..among other things.” Agnetha looks both displeased and proud as she says this and Dawn can safely say that while she is no longer afraid, she is very confused.

‘The flowers had meaning? Maybe she should look them up?’ She considers but never gets round to doing so, she’s simply to busy and since Anders have always been so outspoken it’s not like he couldn’t or wouldn’t have simply told her what he wanted, plus knowing him it was properly some joke or other, so Dawn shoves the thought to the back of her head and then ... she simply forgets.

 

 

************

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Meaning of the flowers, stone and Rune.
> 
> Lisianthus = Calming
> 
> Hydrangea = Perseverance.
> 
> Gladiolus = Strength of Character. 
> 
> Zinnia = Thoughts of Friends.
> 
> Pink Tulip = Caring.  
> Pink Rose = Friendship. 
> 
> Sunflower = Adoration.
> 
> Red tulip = Deceleration of Love.  
> Yellow tulip = Hopelessly in Love.
> 
> Stephanotis = Good Luck.
> 
> Tigers Eye stone = Protection, luck and courage. According to Zodiac to dream of the tiger's eye symbolizes a need to keep alert; someone or some thing is hiding the truth behind of veil of illusion. 
> 
> Ase/Anzus rune = A Godly rune, Inspiration, Blessing, Good fortune, Wisdom, Magic, Protection.  
> ****  
> I hope you enjoyed the fic or at leasted liked it.  
> Either way I'd love to hear your opinion on it in a commet!  
> Cheers Aramir


End file.
